


The Green, Green Dress

by quantumoddity



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, F/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Tension, theatre kids au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:40:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8560171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: “Cool me down before I jump into your thighs!” Shouldn’t it be a good thing, a positive, to get to kiss the person who you had a hopeless, helpless crush on twice a week? To get to play at being a relationship, to have them hold your hips and bite their lip seductively as they ran their eyes up and down your body, to press against them and hitch your leg up to their thigh?Alex and Eliza quickly found that that wasn’t the caseThe King's College Student Theatre production of Tick, Tick Boom goes awry when two cast members fall hard and fast for each other.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alittlebitoftheuniverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlebitoftheuniverse/gifts).



> A College Theatre Kids AU. Based on a tumblr prompt for Alex/Eliza and semi-public sex. I recommend listening to Green, Green Dress from Jonathan Larson's Tick, Tick Boom, its a cracker. 
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you liked, feedback would mean the world! 
> 
> Gifted to my buddy because she is the best beta reader ever and puts up with my whinging.

Eliza Schuyler was really starting to dread rehearsals.

  
She’d finally convinced herself to signed up with her college’s student theatre for a bit of fun, to take her mind off of all her work, to try and get back some of her memories of performing in high school, holed up in her room dancing and singing along to any of a million broadway cast recordings. Eliza could still remember called her sister Angelica, bewildered and overjoyed that she’d been asked to play the lead in Tick, Tick Boom. She’s never had all that much confidence in her singing but she’d honestly felt so proud of herself, an unfamiliar but welcome feeling.

She’d been able to hear the bemused smirk in Angelica’s voice, the one that was almost constantly on her face, as she asked, “So which poor college boy my innocent little baby sister going to be grinding against in front of an audience full of people?”

Eliza had rolled her eyes, recognizing and promptly ignoring her sister’s attempt to wind her up, “Some kid named Alexander Hamilton. He’s quite nice actually; I’ve run into him at a few parties. Hercules’ friend, you know?”

“So you’ll have no problem kissing him? You? The girl who blushed like crazy when I asked her if there were any boys she had a crush on? When she was eighteen?”  
Eliza choked on the swallow of tea she’d been taking, frowning indignantly, “You asked me in front of Grandmother, of course I blushed! And I’m sure I’ll be fine, thank you very much!

That’s what she’d thought. And then she’d actually talked to this kid. She’d gotten to know him.

Eliza had started to notice something about Alex (everyone else in the entire world preferred to call him Hamilton in a slightly exasperated tone but she called him Alex. He seemed to like it). There wasn’t much to him visually, he was short and had kind of an excitable puppy dog thing going on, with a ponytail and goatee that made him look like a starving artist when actually he was one of the top performing law students. But it was the way he drew people’s eye, he was loud and bright, his voice and movements full of character and depth that, while not technically perfect, were the kind that Eliza could listen to and watch for the rest of her life. It was like Alex shone from the inside, like he had energy that somehow made Eliza forget everything that she was worried or stressed about. It made her forget everything apart from Alex himself, actually.

Eliza wasn’t sure how it happened, how she moved from forgetting his name the first time they met to grinning like an idiot every time her phone buzzed and it was a text from him, some dumb picture he’d seen on the Internet that he thought she’d find funny or a joke that was lame enough that no one other than Eliza would laugh at it. How they moved to collapsing against each other in giggles as they ran through their scenes, resting their feet on each others laps during read through, challenging each other to see who could do the most elaborate, ear splitting riffs as they rehearsed songs. How life suddenly seemed so much brighter now Alex was in it.

She didn’t realize it at first; it snuck up on her. Within two weeks, they were friends, the kind of friends that Eliza had never thought she’d find, who understood each other completely. Within three weeks, Eliza got a funny feeling in her chest when Alex walked into the room, hugging her from behind in the way he always did. Within four weeks, Eliza started to worry. It hit her right in the chest one night about halfway through, while she was trying to focus on finishing her essay but all she could think about was the look in Alex’s eyes when she’d wrapped herself around him and kissed him as part of their scene together.

She was falling for Alex. The kind of hard and heavy fall that you didn’t come out of unscathed.

Eliza had put her head on her desk, moaning low in her throat, her hands covering her face in despair. It was just supposed to be a bit of uncomplicated fun. How had it gotten so fucked up?

Because of course he was never going to like her back, the idea was just ridiculous. Alex was confident, talented, one of those people where there was no telling how high they could climb. Why would he ever look twice at her, her who snorted unattractively at dumb jokes and tripped over her own two feet when she tried to nail the choreography? He was so far out of her league it was laughable.

After crying for a while, ringing her sisters for two hours, drinking seven cups of hot chocolate in a row and crying some more, she resolved to back off from Alex. There was no point in torturing herself.

So Eliza backed off a little. She smiled instead of laughing whenever Alex nudged her during rehearsal to whisper some snarky comment in her ear. She didn’t fling herself over him, tangle their legs together or rest her head on his chest in between scenes like they’d usually do. Eliza tried to focus on other things, not the way her heart started to pound as they danced or sang together so when they so much as made eye contact. She just ducked her gaze and bit her tongue, telling herself to stop being such an idiot, to get a hold on herself.

Like he’d ever be interested in her.

Because she was looking away, Eliza didn’t notice the way Alex’s face fell. The way he swallowed a sigh and his shoulders slumped every time she avoided his gaze. The way he frowned and twisted his fingers nervously, his expression tightening as if telling himself something angrily.  
As if telling himself not to be crazy, to think she’d ever be interested in him.

 

Shouldn’t it be a good thing, a positive, to get to kiss the person who you had a hopeless, helpless crush on twice a week? To get to play at being a relationship, to have them hold your hips and bite their lip seductively as they ran their eyes up and down your body, to press against them and hitch your leg up to their thigh?  
Alex and Eliza quickly found that that wasn’t the case.

There would be moments; the odd second or two that would make them jump, where things would feel…right. Alex’s hand would be delicately caressing Eliza’s jaw, she’d leave her lips on his for just a heartbeat longer than she really should and they’d both feel themselves relax into it, surrender to it, it would just feel perfect and right and real.

And then they’d both start, like it had all been reset. The moment would be gone and they’d be left feeling vaguely ill, stiff and awkward. The lines and blocking and choreography would suddenly fly out of their heads, knocked aside, off track, by them telling themselves frantically that is was only acting, they were only acting, it wasn’t real.

And so the production hit something of a brick wall. It’s hard to pull a decent performance together when two out of three actors can’t look or speak to each other.

 

“So that wasn’t…great, was it?”

Eliza spun, jumping nearly out of her skin. She’d thought she was alone in the hall, that everyone else had filed out. But there was Alex, standing on the stage, looking kind of scared and small up there in that vast space.

“Well...” Eliza cast about, trying to compose herself, rescue the books that were threatening to tumble out of her arms and think of something civil to say. But after a few moments of mumbling she gave up.

“Yeah. We sucked,” she admitted, her shoulders dropping.

Eliza wasn’t wrong. Their run through of Green Green Dress had been, well, diabolical, to put it politely. Eliza had accidentally stepped on Alex’s foot, half of the words had fallen out of his head when he’d accidentally looked down as she’d been pressed against him and his tongue had swollen to twice its usual size. A week ago they’d been fine, they’d had chemistry and confidence and they’d been having fun. And now everything was weird, both of them knew why but assumed the other didn’t, blamed themselves and felt self-conscious and stupid.

So yeah. They had sucked.

Alex laughed, rocking on his heels in that way he did. Eliza was starting to realize that it was a tell, he did it whenever he was nervous.

“Yeah it was shit. So I was, um, thinking…if you didn’t have anywhere to be that we could, ah, run through that- that song again? By ourselves. Try and nail it.” Alex asked, struggling with his words. She got the feeling that that didn’t happen very often, not to someone like him.

“Yeah, sure, okay,” the words were out of her mouth before she could really think about whether it was a good idea or not.

Both of them blinked, like the choice hadn’t actually been made by either of them, like it had just happened without any conscious decision.Eliza dropped her armful of textbooks and crossed over to the stage. She was going to take the stairs when Alex jumped forward and held out his hand to pull her up. Eliza paused for half a heartbeat before taking it, trying to pretend that she didn’t feel the slight spark in her chest as their skin touched.

“Okay so we start sat up on the…up here,” Alex mumbled as they took up their starting positions on the rickety looking staircases on either side of the stage, the ones that lead up to the top level. Eliza was supposed to perch a few steps above Alex, theoretically leaning over him in a teasing seductive manner.She sort of shifted, hitching one leg up and leaning an elbow on it, her hand placed awkwardly behind her neck, like she was posing for some kind of farm themed calendar. After a pause they both began to giggle despite themselves.

“You look like a lumberjack,” Alex snorted, the skin wrinkling adorably around his bright eyes as he did. Eliza felt herself blush slightly.

“Shut up,” she poked him with the toe of her boot in what she hoped was a casual way, “I’m trying here, dude.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he held up his hands, placating, pretending to recoil in fear from her deadly attack. Still grinning, he slapped his forehead as if he’d had a brilliant idea, “I’ve got it! You’re not actually wearing anything green, that’s why we keep fucking up!”

Eliza rolled her eyes, “Yeah, sure. That’s why.”

She looked down and plucked at her blouse, her favorite shade of powder blue, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

“Oh no, I mean, that looks gorgeous, you look amazing in that- that shirt,” Alex back pedaled, the nerves flooding back into his voice, “It’s just that it’s called, the song is, y’know…”

“I got it,” Eliza smiled gently.

“You could, ah, wear my shirt?” Alex tugged at the dark green flannel he was wearing, on over a t-shirt for a band that no one else had ever really heard of (she suspected he didn’t know who they were either, he’d probably got it from a thrift store. He did look...good though).

Eliza prayed her blush wasn’t visible. A few moments of slightly awkward fumbling and she was pulling his shirt on over her neat blouse. It was a little big on her, the colors clashed but the scent on it hit her immediately, musk and coffee and aftershave and something else that she couldn’t name but she knew it relaxed her. It smelled of him. She felt the hairs on her skin stand up.

“So we go again?” Eliza said quickly, “From the top. We can just do it without the music.”

Alex nodded. He liked the sight of her in his shirt. He liked it a lot.

He shook his head like a dog trying to clear water from his ear, trying to shake off the fog from his brain. Focus, he snapped at himself, it’s only Eliza.  
He tapped out the rhythm of the opening bars against the wood with his heel, “One, two, three, four-“

“Deep dark velvet hugs your silhouette. Black silk stockings, you’re my Juliet. Soft-“

Alex was supposed to run his hand up her leg as he sang this, his voice low and sultry, unable to tear his eyes away from her.

He managed the first part. But after two lines their eyes met and it was like his brain stalled, a car engine that just caught in its own mechanism. His voice broke in an unattractive way; he blushed and stammered, muttering an apology as he broke away from her eyes.

“Sorry, I, um, I fucked- I fucked it up,” he sighed, running his hands through his shoulder length hair, making its dark surface catch the low light. Eliza blinked. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she was about to ruin everything. But the words were there in her chest and she was going to say them, whether it was a good idea or not.  
She reached and put a gentle hand on his knee, shaking but safe.

“Alex…there’s no one else here. It’s just us. Lets just do this,” Eliza murmured.

He looked at her curiously, his mouth opening slightly, like he was going to ask what on earth she meant. But then his expression softened, his dark eyes grew warm and knowing. He simply nodded.

They were both scared. Hell, they were terrified. But they both wanted this, so bad it hurt, it hurt the way the lungs burned after too long underwater.  
So why not just go for it?

 

There was no music but that was okay. They had the heel of Alex’s boot rapping against the floorboards and the pounding of each other’s heartbeat to set the pace.  
His voice was hot, raw as he caressed her legs and sang, _“Deep dark velvet hugs your silhouette. Black silk stockings, you’re my Juliet.”_

He slid along the step so he could reach up and drag a lock of dark hair, hanging loose from her messy bun, through his fingers, his eyes locked with hers. Eliza felt herself start to tremble, God, she could sink into those eyes, such a deep brown they looked black and catching the light, stars reflecting in a lake at midnight.

 _“Soft blond hair baby, baby blue eyes,”_ he sang gently, lovingly, almost worshipful.  
Eliza remembered rolling her eyes and biting her lip at that line when she’d first sang this song, when they’d first ran through it. She’d muttered some joke to Alex about how there may have been a miscasting issue, gesturing to her own features in a self deprecating kind of way. Alex had shaken his head, looking affronted, telling her firmly that he much preferred her dark hair and brown eyes. That she was beautiful, lyrical consistency be damned. Just like it was nothing.

The way he looked at her as he sang to her, Eliza could almost believe him.

 _“Cool me down before I jump into your thighs!”_ Alex sang playfully, teasingly, as if cooling down was the last thing he wanted to do. He placed his hands on her knees and spread her legs before him, on the beat, rhythmic and purposeful. Eliza had to fight the urge to squeak audibly. There was no fighting the blush anymore.

Alex stood and drew her down the stairs; she followed eagerly. He squeezed her hand excitedly, lifting her right off her feet as they reached the stage, his heart thrilling as she laughed out loud in delight.

He sang, her bright eyes and her smile driving him on, _“The green, green dress, twenty buttons and a strap. The green, green dress, what a pleasure to unwrap!”_

Three hard beats at the end of the line and he dropped with each one until he was on his knees before her, center stage. She sashayed towards him, rolling her hips deliberately, sending him reeling, confident and careless and reckless.

 _“Green, green dress, oh what it can do. What that green, green dress does to me on you,”_ Alex drew out the vowel, though it was a little tricky to stop all the air rushing out of him as Eliza bent before him, deliberately showing off her chest, to pull him to his feet.

It was her turn now as she pulled him over to the chair, “ _Let’s finds a chair where we can sit and talk. Or get some fresh air baby, we could take a walk.”_ Her voice flooded his chest with warmth, branching through his body to his extremities and down to…other places. Alex blinked hard, trying to focus. The only sound he ever wanted to hear again was Eliza's voice.

The went out of the window as she dropped into his lap with a wink and a grin that made his mouth dry and his vision blur, everything but her face indistinct and unimportant. Her mouth skirted his neck, her breath hot, sweet.

_“Tell me what you’re thinking and talk about your day, tell me what to do, I’ll do anything you say!”_

Their voices joined, matching each other perfectly, note for note, crashing together and finding common ground.

_Yeah the green, green dress, twenty buttons and a strap. The green, green dress, what a pleasure to unwrap! The green dress, oh what it can do. What the green, green dress does to me on you…_

Once she was finished nearly torturing him with her lap dance, Eliza pulled him to his feet and they danced, without fear or reservation, caring about nothing in the whole goddamn universe but each other.

Eliza leaned against the opposite stairs, pulling Alex against her, suddenly gentle, loving, _“Can I hear you laugh, babe? Can you make me smile? I’ll forget what’s on my mind for a while.”_

Alex desperately wanted to melt against her and have her hold him, have her make him laugh. But that wasn’t in the script.  
He took hold of her wrists and pulled them above her head, more deliberate and fierce than he’d ever done before. His voice became a growl, Eliza nearly whimpered.  
_“Can I tie you up love? If you tell me yes, I’ll unbutton every button on your green, green dress!”_

His voice rose and built; climbing towards a rough but beautiful crescendo and the music in their minds soared. Eliza let him whirl her away, they pressed against each other hungrily; so unbelievably happy it was almost unfair. As his voice broke into an almost hilarious, comical yowl of arousal, as he dipped her, Eliza was grinning.

Their voices crashed together again, full of heedless joy and abandon as they launched back into their dance.

 _Yeah the green, green dress, twenty buttons and a strap. The green, green dress, what a pleasure to unwrap! The green dress, oh what it can do. What the green, green dress does to me on you…_  
_The green, green dress, Green, green dress_  
_Me on you, me on you._  
_Oh…_

They were back in the chair, crawling over each other in a way that was hardly decent, Alex kneeling on the floor like he was worshiping her, Eliza bending over him, their voices gasping and heated.

 _“Green, green dress...”_  
_“Green, green dress…”_  
_“The green, green dress!”_

The song ended with a kiss. Their lips met sweetly but with more than a little fire and didn’t part for a long, long time.

Both Alex and Eliza stopped as they realized that the song was over. They were back to being themselves, scared and awkward college kids in an empty theatre.

Expect they weren’t. Something was different.

They didn’t pull away completely from each other, they just breathed heavily, their faces just an inch apart. Their eyes stayed locked.

“That was, um…better,” Alex muttered hoarsely after a while.

“Yeah. Way better,” a hesitant smile spread slowly over her face.

Alex blinked, that crooked grin Eliza loved so much sparking into life, “Actually? Can we, um, try that kiss again? I don’t think I got the- the timing quite right.”  
Eliza bit her lip. Her eyes shone.

“Yeah. Sure.”

They crashed back together, urgently, every second they’d been apart feeling like a complete waste. Hands flew to cradle jaws and trace the swell of hips, teeth grazed lips, tongues darted.  
Alex whined a little when Eliza broke off after nearly five minutes. She had to giggle at his disappointed expression.

“I just wanted to ask if…if that door locks?” Eliza motioned to the small double doors, the only way into the hall, “I mean, it’s way after hours but is there any chance anyone’s going to walk in on us?”

Alex blinked and then realization and excitement dawned. He looked at her, surprised, just stunned to find that this beautiful, amazing woman wanted him and much as he wanted her.

“It doesn’t, I don’t think,” he answered quietly, “Do we care?”

After the barest of pauses, Eliza shook her head.  
He wasn’t going to argue.

“Are you, um…is it safe, I mean…” Alex stammered, using the last rational part of his brain.

“I’m on the pill,” she answered smoothly, nodding.

“And you…you definitely want to?” Alex felt like the very obvious erection in his jeans answered his half of the question.

“God yes,” Eliza sighed, practically begging.

That was the only answer they needed. Alex began to tug off his belt; Eliza worked the clasp of her jeans frantically. The moment her bare legs were exposed to him, the whole slender length of them, he froze. And then she yanked down her pants, he could see for himself how wet she was, the delicate, flushed skin between her thighs. And there was only one thing he wanted to do.

Alex had never actually done this before. He’d never actually done anything with a girl before.  
But he'd always been one for trying new things.

He pushed Eliza’s legs apart and bend between them, pressing a swift, urgent kiss to her lips. The effect on her was instantaneous, she froze, electricity running through her veins, her eyes widening, the breath catching in her throat.

“Yes?” Alex murmured, waiting for permission.

“Yes,” came Eliza’s breathless, pleading reply.

“Well let me jump into your thighs,” he couldn’t resist, smirking delightedly.

Eliza laughed though it was cut off with a strangled moan of ecstasy as Alex bent back to his work. God, he was good. Her toes curled as he whispered against her most sensitive parts, left hickeys on her thighs. She yelped as he traced complicated paths with a tip of his tongue, she practically screamed as he sucked on her clit. A thought crossed Alex’s mind that they should maybe be careful, someone was bound to come in or hear them. But then Eliza’s fingers grasped his hair, pulling at the roots and he forgot everything else.

“Alex, oh god, don’t stop, yes, Alexander,” Eliza was no longer in control of her own body; she surrendered completely to him.

Neither of them could last long, they’d been waiting for this for what felt like forever. The release of weeks worth of tension was indescribable, dragging it out a second longer was an impossibility.

Eliza sighed his name as she came so hard she saw burst of light behind her tightly shut eyes. His name in her voice, spoken like that, nearly ruined him but he managed to hang on. This was her’s. He was her’s.

It felt like barely even a pause before she was pulling at him, dragging him off stage into the wings. Once they’d exited stage left, at least not in flagrante delicto in full view of anyone who might walk in (although they might wonder at the two pairs of jeans abandoned haphazardly in a chair), Alex pushed her against the wall. He practically tore her shirt off, not wanting any of her left hidden or covered. Eliza grinned in quiet triumph at the expression on Alex’s face, the way his eyes widened and his jaw went slack at the sight of her breasts. He gathered himself quickly, pausing for a moment, looking at the green check shirt still in his hands.

“I actually think I want you to wear this. Is that weird?” he asked, raising an eyebrow brazenly.

Eliza nodded eagerly, reaching for it. Maybe it was weird. Maybe all of this was weird. But what the hell?

Alex had to work very, very hard not to come all over himself at the sight of Eliza wearing nothing but his shirt. He took a deep breath and moved quickly, pushing her against the wall, and hitching her leg up to his hip. A moment’s awkwardness and he was inside her, the whole length of him. Eliza gasped, her fingernails digging into his ass, her muscles constricting around him in the sweetest way. Alex began to roll his hips, thrusting desperately, needing this girl so badly, gasping and moaning. Eliza discovered places in herself she hadn’t even known existed, a kind of love for herself that Alex’s gaze and touch brought out into the light.  
Alex peaked and broke open, he couldn’t even make a noise he was so lost in Eliza. His teeth sinking into her shoulder was enough, tipping her over the edge yet again, pulling her below the surface for a second time. It was more than enough.

Once they could both speak again, the only thing they could do was laugh. They just held each other and laughed until they could hardly stand, Eliza had to hold Alex up.

“I just had no idea that you liked me back! I would have actually said something instead of pining after you like a moron for weeks,” he giggled, kissing the hollow of her throat as he spoke.

“Well, I never knew that you were into me!” Eliza protested, her fingers gently massaging the small of his back, “I never thought that someone like you would ever…”

She trailed off, suddenly embarrassed. Alex pulled away, looking confused, startled. After a moment her put his hand on her chin, lifting her eyes to his. The sincerity in his gaze made her want to recoil but… she didn’t. She looked back at him, holding back the walls that usually sprang up between her and other people. She wasn’t afraid.

“Eliza, you’re beautiful. And amazing and wonderful and…and I like you. A lot. So much it kind of scares me,” Alex admitted, taking her hand in his.

Eliza blinked. Then she leaned forward and kissed him hard. He held her close and sank into her touch.  
It was nice. It tasted of hope. And promise.

 

Once they were back in their clothes and as presentable as they could make themselves, oddly enough, that was when the awkwardness came back, the fear that someone might wander in on them. But now they had each other. They were holding hands as they walked out of the empty theatre and grinning like little kids, best friends with a secret.

Before they went off to their separate bus stops, they kissed again, swiftly, sweetly.

“So just do that every rehearsal and we’ll do just fine,” Alex joked, his eyes bright, his grin infectious.

“Shut up, man,” Eliza giggled, reaching over and wiping a smudge from the corner of his goatee.

“So, a coffee tomorrow morning? I really want to see you, soon.”

“Perfect,” her smile was brilliant; it lit up his entire world.

One last kiss, they could barely keep their hands off each other and Eliza was alone again, walking through the night like she had wings on her heels. She wanted to dance through the streets, whooping and punching the air.

She had a feeling she was going to like rehearsals again.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of my writing is over on my tumblr, quantum-oddity. Come chat!


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